Imagine for a moment that you walked to your door tomorrow morning to find police officers dressed in riot gear, armed with machine guns standing there. On the hill above your home you see the barrels of guns pointing down directly at you, and in the street are armored vehicles. Someone tells you that a 16 year old in your church has reported being raped and beaten by a 50 year old man. She hasn’t been found. He hasn’t been found. No one has been arrested. But just to be safe, they are removing your children from you because of your association to a crime that hasn’t been proven.
That is what happened at the YFZ ranch in ElDorado, TX earlier this month.
I’ve tried to keep Freedom Fridays positive, but today i want to voice a very unpopular view.
In this country you are free to be weird.
You are not free to abuse children.
You are not free to beat your wife.
You are not free to have more than one wife.
But no one has been arrested for any of these crimes. Instead, 400 children have been dragged at gun point from the only home they have ever known because people think their lifestyle is weird.
I think that these polygamist compounds are immoral cesspools of depravity and abuse, but if we are willing to allow the government to ignore the constitution in the case of one religious group that secular America thinks is creepy, we had better be prepared to be the next group without any constitutional protection.
The 4th amendment of the Constitution provides protection against unreasonable search and seizure. The government is not allowed to show up at your door, hold a gun to your head and demand anything without proving first that they believe you to be guilty of a crime. The 5th amendment states that the government can’t seize you or your property without first following the due process of law. The state of Texas was free and responsible to investigate the alleged abuse of ONE sixteen year old girl. They had every right to arrest every man in the compound for polygamy. Instead, the state chose to break the law.
I say that because this blogger sees no difference between what I believe about marriage and submission and what the FLDS teach. I see a big difference. I think the women she quotes would see a big difference. But she doesn’t. She uses the same words to describe women like me, that these readers use when talking about the FLDS compound women. What happens one day when I have a knock at my door telling me that because I once blogged that I believe in submission, my daughter is being removed on suspicion of unnamed abuse?
This Freedom Friday, I would like to point out that we are only free under the protection of the Constitution if we believe the Constitution should protect everyone. The law only protects our freedoms if it protects them all the time and for everyone.
*************************************************************
Do you want to share your ideas about Freedom Friday? If you write a Freedom Friday post, and want to share it, add a link to it in the Mr. Linky below.
RustyBadger said,
April 18, 2008 at 10:25 am
Right on.
I thought you said this was going to be controversial! Now I have nothing rant about. Anyone interested in the erosion of their Constitutional rights should do a bit of reading on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s website.
I suspect that I’m your most libertarian reader and commenter, so maybe this will be more controversial to your right-wing readers. It makes sense, though; there’s no controversy in opinions that all your readers agree with, is there?
Elizabeth said,
April 18, 2008 at 10:47 am
I completely disagree. The only way to ensure the abuse doesn’t continue is to remove the children. If they arrested the men in charge, the abuse would continue because the women have been brainwashed into thinking this is God’s way. I am shocked at the lack of outrage among Christians. What I’m reading is attacks on the Big Bad Government. Please. I would bet there are many women thanking God for deliverance–even though you don’t see those women on TV. Is this a complicated situation? Yes. But the safety of the children ought to always come first–and the only way this was going to happen was if the children were removed. Otherwise, it might have been Waco all over again.
Cyndy said,
April 18, 2008 at 11:09 am
I have had these same thoughts. And frankly what do we think the rest of non-God believing America is doing when they move from one partner to the next with children in tow? I’ve heard it referred to as serial polygomy (or serial monogomy). And it’s not anymore healthy for the women and children involved than the FLDS situation is. However there are no armed police forces knocking down their doors (although I am aware that sometimes CPS does end up involved with some of these people).
You can not legislate or police morality. You can protect individuals from harm.
All that to say, I agree with you and had many of the same thoughts!
Coralie said,
April 18, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Thank you for your thoughts, Elizabeth.
My point is that no one has yet proven there was any abuse. If children are being abused I agree they should be taken out of the home, but in this country we are innocent until proven guilty. The FLDS families are being treated as guilty until they can prove themselves innocent.
Interestingly, I think the state of Texas and the federal government broke the law in Waco too, but that’s probably a post better not written right now.
akhomeschoolfun said,
April 18, 2008 at 10:37 pm
If kids were taken away for abuse that may or may not ever happen, all kids would be in state custody. If you lived next door to a child abuser, would you want your kids taken because they may be in danger from your neighbor? This seems like a lot of guilt by association with the kids the sad victims.
This is unreasonable search and seizure. Only instead of objects, the state took something more precious, ALL the children. Why were they ALL taken anyway rather a case by case, family by family basis?
During the time in foster care, who knows how much harm will be done to these kids by immersing them in a lifestyle they have been taught is evil and removing them from their morals and support network? Regular foster kids have a grasp of how to function in the modern world. These kids don’t. I would submit that the state is committing abuse by forcing them to live in a lifestyle they are totally unprepared for.
This is a sad and complicated situation.
Mrs. C said,
April 21, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Believing that we as Americans should NEVER have to fear unlawful search and seizure practices ought not be controversial. Ever.
I totally agree, akhomeschoolfun.
akhomeschoolfun said,
April 24, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Hopefully some good can come from this. God never lets things happen without a reason. If this sparks better laws protecting BOTH the kids and parental rights then that would be a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just too bad that it takes a large, public incident like this to make it happen.
Chris Nystrom said,
April 29, 2008 at 11:37 am
Removing children to try to stamp out a culture is pure and simple genocide. What are they going to do? Have another raid every couple of years to scoop up the next batch of kids?
See: http://www.captivefldschildren.org/index.php